Deleted member 1487

Soviet Storm Caucusus episode. Again, unlike what Nuker says, the Germans almost made it there even when they moved their mobile elements west to the black sea ports. So, if the Germans go right for the prize they probably take it as per the original plan. Further, without the big traffic jam posited in the POD, they have an even bigger head start.
What benefit does that give? You have to go over mountains to get to it and it doesn't cut any vital rail lines.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Caucasus_region_1994.jpg
I'm going to venture a guess and say the 'Soviet Storm' series was wrong on that one. Never heard that ever as a primary objective.
 
Given that the Germans never got close to Tbilisi (they were still about 300km away - and on the wrong side of the mountains - in September), I'm guessing it's probably a mixup and supposed to be either Tuapse or Sokhumi the episode is referring.to.
 

Genghis

Banned
If the fourth panzer was not diverted to The Don crossing it Wouldnt have to be saved by the first second and third panzer.(Yer fourth panzer evocates less of 4.TH panzer division and more like the Fourth panzer out of 700 in the Panzer divisions) :D
 

Deleted member 1487

Well anyway, if the Soviets opt to keep up some pressure around Stalingrad, but focus their attention on Voronezh instead over the late Summer, how does that play out?
 
So as I understand it the POD is the 4th Panzer Armee takes Stalingrad in July without serious opposition. As had almost been done in OTL.

1. Production: Around 500 T-34 per month from July 42 onward one can assume that even if Stalingrad is recaptured the factory will be either so much rubble or more likely somewhere in Germany making Panzers. Plus all the other things that were produced in Stalingrad.

2. The airfields around Stalingrad would become available for Luftflotte 4 from around 1st of August. Blocking usage of the railroad going North West from Astrakhan and probably the one from Atyrau going north as well. And naturally the Volga would have been blocked for Soviet Transport. This Means:

a. Supplies for the forces facing AG B (the Transcaucasus Front) would have to be supplied through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan along a single track railroad and then across the Caspian Sea to Baku.

b. Going the other way the Land Lease goods going through Persia and the fuel from the main refinery in the USSR (somewhere between 80% and 95% depending on which petrochemical).

c. Also what OTL became the Stalingrad Front under Yeremko would have been unable to form as no supplies could reach South East of Stalingrad along the Volga.

d. OTL Don Front under Rokossovski would have to fall back towards Saratov at least so far that their supply network would be covered by Red Air from the airfields at Saratov.

3. As for logistics a smart German commander would have moved supplies down the Danube, across the Black Sea and up the Don all the way to Voronezh for AG B. No transhipments, no partisans, and almost no thread of aerial or seaborne attack. Leaving the trains for AG Centre and a few captured Soviet trains for the short distance from Rostov to AG A heading towards Tbilisi. The units heading south along the Black Sea coast would receive their supplies in the plethora of small ports along said coast.

4. Today there is a channel from Kalach-na-Don(on the Don bend nearest to Stalingrad) to Stalingrad, I don’t know about 1942. But even without said channel it is only 80km with a pre-existing train track. For that short a length you could even keep it on Soviet Gauge and just run a couple of trains up en down all the time. That means you now have a supply base at Stalingrad in August on the Volga. Build a couple of those supply rafts, like they used for DAK. And now Astrakhan is within full supply support range, and from there the 20 or so small ports along the Caspian Coast down to Baku.

5. This means you could leave 6 Armee in Stalingrad facing North West, a Soviet counter attack would have to come down the Volga from Saratov. (That is while the Germans hold Voronezh) As there is no real roads or railway that could support an Army coming from the East (even now there are almost no roads until you get to Oranburg). This is all flat farm and steppe land. I would make the river Akhtuba which goes East from the Volga the right flank and river Erzovka that goes West from the Volga the left flank. The Red Army would have to march through a virtual blizzard of Luftwaffe bombs. Before even making contact with 6 Armee.

6. Then the 4 Panzer Armee starts south along the Volga from Stalingrad to Astrakhan and then south to Baku along the Caspian Coast would have been almost unopposed until it hit the rear of 44th Red Army under LE Petrov south of the Kuma river. Along the coast the mountains already less severe only start at halfway to Baku at Machatsjikala. Today there is an airfield just south of Machatsjikala but I don’t know about 1942. However assuming there was or the Germans build one, Soviet traffic on the Caspian Sea would come to quick halt. They could also bring in some Schnellboot and base them in Astrakhan.

7. This would force the Transcaucasus Front to retreat south into Persia really fast. Probably as soon as 4 Panzer Armee passes Machatsjikala to the south the order would have to be given. As once 4 Panzer reaches Baku and South Azerbeidzjan they are surrounded.

8. This means a massive retreat from the Black Sea and Tbilisi towards Tabriz and the mountains in North Persia. Trying to supply an entire Red Army Front through Tabriz would be impossible. That is a retreat of roughly 1000km trough mountains for the Soviets or an advance of 400km along a flat coast line for the Germans. Guess who would win that race.

9. Then leaving the 17 Armee (probably without the Italians but with additional mountain troops) and the 3rd Romanian Army to make a new AG Persia, facing the remnants of the Trascaucasus Front and any British reinforcements moving North. I would not try to advance AG Persia any further South than needed to secure Baku, trying to take the Persia from the North West is plain retarded.

10. This leaves the rest of AG A & B to start heading North along the Don and Volga. Maybe some of the Nazi Cossacks to head across the Ural river to raise some hell in the Eastern Steppes and North into the Ural mountains.

I think it is safe to say that this would be a very bad thing for the Soviets. Especially seeing that they would run out of petrochemicals in a couple of months. And vice versa that the Germans would gain the oil fields and mines of Caucasus even if damaged by retreating troops.
 
Just entered the thread here and without going into too much details there are some overall assumptions I'd like to question.
Germans take Stalingrad and a debateable amount of bad Things happens to the Soviets further South to South east. However, If Stalin does not Waste his strength on premature counterattacks and the soviet counterattack is build up to scale, targeting the Italians/Romanians/Hungarians on the flank I dont know what will happen immediately (eg. is the front as exposed or not), but it seems unlikely that Hitler Wold then give up his gains. He would allocate what he thought was necessary to beat of the attack AND still hold the gains at all cost. If he calculates correctly the Germans have a major win, if not, it may end up worse than OTL.
Without the Stalingrad commitment I dont think the flanks would be remaining static, weak and over-exposed months after the City is taken, or that this alternate TL's rumors of a soviet build-up would have to be ignored to fit in Hitlers World Picture, but that is where the decisive knock-on effects are (provided STalin still reserve forces for the counter-attack).

Just my contribution.
 
And this all ends with an instant can of sunshine in 1945, I presume?

The preposition was that 4 Panzer would take Stalingrad on the run. It is kind of hard not to get into Naziwank territory from there. Hitler would have not messed with 4 Panzers deployment as a first.

And the logistical and geographical realities are all OTL. As was the resupply via the Black Sea, that is how the 3rd and 4th Romanian army's got to the front.

I do think that a large attack against 2 Armee at Voronezh and 2nd Hungarian along the Don, would have happened maybe around September but definitely in the winter of 42-43. Using the forces that were used at Stalingrad in OTL. But even there I have to point out that defending Voronezh and the Don in the open would be vastly preferable for the Germans then fighting in Stalingrad.
 
Even if the Germans take Stalingrad on the march, they're not going to be able to push much further without sorting out their logistics. Wouldn't this pause give the Red Army time to mass for a counterattack?
 

Deleted member 1487

Even if the Germans take Stalingrad on the march, they're not going to be able to push much further without sorting out their logistics. Wouldn't this pause give the Red Army time to mass for a counterattack?
The 4th Panzer army and the Don/Volga flank guard wasn't supposed to march further and yes logistics would stop them there. The thing is the Soviets would be pretty badly disorganized and it would take time to put together organized counterattacks; if they don't IOTL all hasty attacks outside the city were brutally slaughtered with minimal German losses. Inside the city German firepower and maneuver skill was negated even though they were still inflicting more losses than they took, just not nearly by the favorable margins they were getting outside the city in open terrain. The Soviets couldn't river assault the city via the Volga, so they'd have to attack from the North and Southeast in the open and give von Richthfen's Stukas and other bombers a juicy targets that they'd slaughter as they had the entire campaign already. So a bunch of counterattacks on Stalingrad would be a bloodbath for the Soviets and actually exactly what the Germans would want, because they were in prime defensive terrain and had their heavy combat forces in precisely that area. It would be much smarter for the Soviets to do things like wait and build up to attack around Voronezh and along the Don Flank.
 
The preposition was that 4 Panzer would take Stalingrad on the run. It is kind of hard not to get into Naziwank territory from there. Hitler would have not messed with 4 Panzers deployment as a first.

And the logistical and geographical realities are all OTL. As was the resupply via the Black Sea, that is how the 3rd and 4th Romanian army's got to the front.

I do think that a large attack against 2 Armee at Voronezh and 2nd Hungarian along the Don, would have happened maybe around September but definitely in the winter of 42-43. Using the forces that were used at Stalingrad in OTL. But even there I have to point out that defending Voronezh and the Don in the open would be vastly preferable for the Germans then fighting in Stalingrad.

That the Germans would do better was what I was indeed getting at. The Soviets could well bail out of the war in the scenario you outlined, which means the Americans start nuking Germany in 1945. That reminds me. The Germans could retaliate against British cities with nerve gas. TTL could get really ugly.
 
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That the Germans would do better was what I was indeed getting at. The Soviets could well bail out of the war in the scenario you outlined, which means the Americans start nuking Germany in 1945. That reminds me. The Germans could retaliate against British cities with nerve gas. TTL could get really ugly.

Yes I think the day after the nuke drop it will get very hard to breath and go dark in the UK. And a couple weeks later much the same for large parts of the East Coast. Which is why I think the US will regret nuking Berlin. Once that happens the fear that Hitler had for gas will become irrelevant.

OTL the Nazi's had a major strategic advantage with Sarin and Tabun, especially as they are lethal through skin exposure, meaning all those lovely gasmask everyone was toting around during the Blitz would do diddly squat:eek:o_O.

Dropping a nuke on the Nazi's would have been a disaster for the Allies and Soviets:oops:. Also no fun for the people in the fallout zone.

Pretty sure the Nazi's would have given Russia a once over as well, probably using muster of chlorine gas as they had almost no gas masks.
 
Yes I think the day after the nuke drop it will get very hard to breath and go dark in the UK. And a couple weeks later much the same for large parts of the East Coast. Which is why I think the US will regret nuking Berlin. Once that happens the fear that Hitler had for gas will become irrelevant.

OTL the Nazi's had a major strategic advantage with Sarin and Tabun, especially as they are lethal through skin exposure, meaning all those lovely gasmask everyone was toting around during the Blitz would do diddly squat:eek:o_O.

Dropping a nuke on the Nazi's would have been a disaster for the Allies and Soviets:oops:. Also no fun for the people in the fallout zone.

Pretty sure the Nazi's would have given Russia a once over as well, probably using muster of chlorine gas as they had almost no gas masks.

Not completely sure about that. The USA will have Little Boy and Fatman available by late July, a third nuke (with OTL's "Demon Core") by August 19, a fourth by September 1, another 3-4 nukes by the end of September and 3-4 every month after that (perhaps more as production capacity increases, possibly up to 50-100 nukes being produced in 1946). This means that from September 1945 onward one German city is toast for every week Germany refuses to surrender. Besides that, Churchill could respond to nerve gas with anthrax (Operation Vegetarian comes to mind). I guess it all depends on the resolve of the British people in the face of a weapon they can't see and can't defend against. Btw, I find it unlikely the Nazis could carry out meaningful nerve gas attacks against the US eastern seaboard.
 
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